Never Let Me Go

Synopsis

These students have everything they need. Except time.

As children, Kathy, Ruth, and Tommy spend their childhood at an idyllic and secluded English boarding school. As they grow into adults, they must come to terms with the complexity and strength of their love for one another while also preparing for the haunting reality awaiting them.

Kazuo Ishiguro's novel is a wonderfully written parable. It deftly uses a science fiction conceit to explore human mortality. It does so by recounting a coming of age tale that is as horrific as it is gripping. Horrific because the protagonist never perceives the horrendous practice the story deals with as something wrong and gripping because of the harsh reality of the nature of the existence of the characters and the forced, condensed lives they live.

Romanek's film handles the conceit brilliantly, but barely manages to scratch the surface of the emotional layers in the story. His film looks stunning and is adequately acted by a decent cast. It also shows a great amount of restraint.

I have established that The Tree of Life is, on a profound and personal level, my favorite film of all time, a masterpiece that changed my perspective on life for the better. One of my main points of emphasis in describing why the Malick film is so meaningful to me is because I walked away from the experience thinking about how the very notion of existence, the opportunity to live and breathe, was the greatest gift one could receive. The film Never Let Me Go tells the story of a group of children that attend a secluded and seemingly excellent boarding school, but their lives are flipped totally upside down once they discover that they are clones and the only…

I know I do this in almost all my reviews but has anyone checked to see if Andrew Garfield and Andy Murray have ever been spotted in the same room? Just saying.

I think I'm developing somewhat of a love for these kinds of science fiction films that are not really science fiction at all and the science fiction in them is just a minor background to a relationship drama or romance. See also - Eternal Sunshine Of The Spotless Mind, Another Earth and....bollocks, I've forgotten what the other one was now. There was another one, honest, I'm not just saying that because there weren't as many examples to nail to my original point and I'm covering up to stop…

This is of course very quietly heartbreaking, served well by Romanek's unobtrusive but slightly too pretty patience and the three leads (although Garfield's hair in the first half surely got into the quadrotriticale). But, mostly because I'm a jerk, I got hung up on details. Perhaps Ishiguro's source novel goes into it, but why aren't the kids given some sort of psychological indoctrination to prepare them for their (lack of a) future? Shouldn't Mulligan's carer be more suspicious that deferrals are a myth? These seem like crucial omissions, neglected so that we can more easily lament these beautiful lovers' loss of each other. Like a lot of Garland's screenplays (EX MACHINA being my favorite punching bag on this front) lets…

i always meant to watch this back in 7th grade when i was in love with andrew garfield (around the time the social network came out, not coincidentally) but i'm glad i put it off until now because this is some [rust cohle voice] heavy shit

The story of this film could perfectly been set in the future, yet is passed between the 70's and the 90's where science discovered a way to extend human life creating clones to donate organs. The children are raised in an outside world where they almost have no contact with real life. Three of those children, as already teenagers live a love triangle and at the same time they struggle against the idea that they will not live longer. It's depressing, sad and heartbreaking with a musical score perfect for the ambience of the film. Visually it's beautiful. Good acting by Andrew Garfield, Keira Knightley but especially from Carey Mulligan. Even when she is not talking just the look on…

Boy I don't know where I fall on this film. By the end of it I found myself looking back wishing I had been made more emotionally invested but maybe the indifference and lack of melodrama is what makes this film special. Maybe I'm to used to my emotions being manipulated by Hollywood. Perhaps this film nails it with not emotionally over extending any which way. It is how it is, life